The next day I woke up early (1o am) and tried to rouse others (Well, just J and Jared) so we could make the treck to Estio (pronounced Schtoy). Estoi has one of the biggest markets in the ALgarve the second Sunday of the month, and it happened to be the second Sunday of the month. Estoi is also home to some really kick ass Roman ruins, and one strange roccoco palace.
We headed out to Estoi arouud 11. It was *not* easy to find the turn-off for Estoi from 125 since it was NOT MARKED - like AT ALL. Without Jared's smart phone I don't think we would have found it, even thought it really consisted of 1 turn. Nevertheless, we did find the turn and Estoi was really only a little over 30 minutes away. We found the town - in the interior of the country toward the hills. Another landscape, another place. There were cars everywhere for the rket so we parked right as we got into the town and then we followed the herd to the market.
The market was huge - it felt as big as the night market in Thailand, but I know it wasn't. We split up and looked around. Lots to look at - shoes, clothes, linens, food, children's toys, knock off brand purses, etc. Loads to look at. Jared bought two very nice (possibly fake) Polo shirts: one green and one blue. If they are fake (wich they probably are), they are darn good fakes. The buttons read "Ralph Lauren" and the interior rim of the collar has a band which read Ralph Loren as well. .Jared also bought a shoe, which I barganed down from 35 euros to 25. I hope the shoe is good enough - it looks like Dr. Martin and he said it was comfy The interesting thing is that everywhere we went the sellars didn't try to sell to him, they looked at me and sold to me "Doesn't it look good on him? Doesn't it fit? Isn't it nice?" I kept thinking - it's form him - ask him! Ha! Oh well. I got a few things as well but as they are presents for people, I won't mention them in this blog.
WE also sat down at a food truck and had a 60 cent espresso in a plastic cup. It was surprisingly good. I neglected to mention earlier that there was a livestock isle of this market with tons of birds stuffed in cages. Yuck. When we met up with the others we found out that they had eaten. so I grabbed a crepe with chocolate on a stick from a cart. The dude running the cart was nice and kept asking me how to say things in english: "Do you say aaapple or upple?" "What do you call quesjo?"
From the market we wantered around trying to find the pink rococco palace. We got a little lost - I finally asked a lady at one of the shops how to get to the palace and she told me how in Portuguese. Left and right in portuguese are sufficiently similar to spanish, even though the rest of the language sounds like a mix of Russian and Spanish (sorry! It does!). Asking directions helps (although the boys seem allergic to it) and the old lady lead us right to the ridiculous and beutiful rococco palace.
Some dude from the Algarve decided to build the palace in the 1880s and ran out of money. The palace was closed for many years (it was closed th last time LonleyPlanet wrote about it), but recently there had been a restoration attempt and the palace has been reappropriated into a hotel and spa (with ba beautiful oasis infinity swimming pool - what a tempation!). We were allowed inside where we saw several lavishly decorrated rooms. It looked like a mini Versailles in the middle of nowhere! Too funny! We wandered the palace and then settled outside where we had a beer at the cafe. Yes, the beer was x3 what it was in Fuzeta but it was worth it to spend time in that strange beautiful place. I got a brocure for rooms/spas and the spa was quite expensive, even for US prices, while the rooms looked reasonable for US prices ($80 euros for a double room, lowest end room - with $120 for the highest end room). The palace had air-co, which was lively since the day was wuite warm.
From the palace we walked back to the car and drove to Mileu to check out the Roman ruins. We found the entrace and went inside. The attedant at the national monument was the rudest person I'd encountered on this whole trip. He wasn't having ANYTHING - you think he'd be used to tourist, since I doubt too many locals come to look at the site. We paid $2 euro entrance fee, and first walked around the small 2 room exhibit about the site.
From the gallery we walked up a ramp to the ruins. At first glance they don't look like much, but once you look down into the (Former) baths you see the 1st century mosaic of fish, lobsters, and dolphins, oh my! I've never seen something so old, so intact that has been left out in the elements! The ruins were totally exposed with minimal infrasturcture - some pathways aruond the ruins and some ropes were all that kept over-eager tourists from trampling them. I thought they were amazing.
We then went home to Fuzeta and got ready for the beach. We went to the close beach, all of us fitting in one car now. We set up our stuff and quickly had to move it further in-land as the tide came in and created tide pools all over the shore. I read, went swimming in the calm (but a little cold) water, and generally relaxed. The snack shops on the beach serve wine, beer, and sangria so you are welcomed to openly drink on the beach. Oh, and while Spain's drinking age is 18, Portugal doesn't have a minimum drinking age. But - as I found out in a travel guide - Portugal does have two different ages of sexual consent: 14 for heterosexual sex and 16 for homosexual sex. What about that!
From the beach we went home where I retreated to the bedroom, napped and read. Others cooked meat and settled in to watch football. I didn't mind that they were watching football (at first) but I thought it might be nice for us all to do something together on Tina's and Justin's last night. Well, no such luck.
I tried to get Jared to come out with me to walk around after the end of the first football game to no avail, so I took the car - first with Tina - to go to the supermarket in town. No luk - it was Sunday and the market closed early. So I then drove to Ohlao and got some goodies including a really excellent icecream cake. But I was mad that watching one football game turned into watching 3 football games - 6 hours of football. And American football at that. Jared didn't come to bed that night - not because he had work - but because he stayed up watching football and then fell asleep on the couch.
